How To Make a Prayer Plant Houseplant More Full! | Maranta Plant Propagation!

Hey guys. Today I thought we would propagate some prayer plant. Been a while since I've done like a sit down plant video and I miss doing it. So today that's what we're going to be doing. I have been wanting to propagate some Maranta plant. I've been working on making this lemon lime Maranta more full. It has been growing quite a bit, but as you can see, but really you can kind of see down here, it's just a little bit sparse. So I've been propagating something slowly. It has been growing like pretty well. There's new growth there, new growth there, some new growth. Oh, a few new leaves over here. This one's about to unroll. But anyway, the moral of the story is I really want to make the base of it more full and thick looking. So I thought I'd show you the process I use for propagating this kind of prayer plant. There are a few different methods of propagation you can use, but I will actually physically show you my favorite way to propagate. It's really easy and straightforward. So I just have some containers of water. You know how much I love water propagation because I'm nosy and I love watching the root systems. I just get little glass containers like these at the thrift store. And I do prefer ones with a wider base and then like a smaller neck and opening. It helps stop leaves from sitting in water and potentially like rotting. So yeah, basically all we're gonna do is find a node. I will also show you closeups of all this. We are going to find a node and finding nodes on Maranta plants, they look a little bit different. Where it's widest and then gets really thin, that's going to be considered the node. So, and that is the case with a lot of different Maranta plants. It doesn't look like your typical node on like a philodendron or pothos, or even like a Hoya, pretty much any other plant. So I know it can be a little bit confusing. Put your fingers on a branch and slide it down gently. And where you feel that bump, where it gets really skinny and turns into like a one stem looking thing, that's where you're going to cut. So I actually think I'm going to cut this branch right here because some of the leaves are getting burned. I do keep this close to my oven and sometimes it gets a little bit too hot and this thing gets pushed close to the oven. So yeah, I'm going to cut this one. So just cut. So I'm just leaving about an inch of stem down there. That's not completely necessary, but this is just what I like to do. The roots will form out of this. I'll show you on a few of my other propagations. So I'm also going to cut off some of these ugly leaves. And this one, just so that it has more energy to devote to pushing roots. Really quick, this is actually a really good example. You can also take single leaf cuttings on occasion. It won't work on every single leaf, depending on how long the leaf has grown. But here, here you can see there's this bump. There is a little bump there. That is a node, but cut just right below that. And also stick this in water and it would probably grow roots. Although, like I said, I do think that more leaves equal higher chance of success. Although too many leaves can also mean lower chance of success. So I guess I don't really know what I'm talking about, but you know what I mean. Okay. So then just literally going to plop it in water like so. Easy peasy. And while we're here, I thought we could pot up a few of my previous propagations back into the pot. So you can see what a difference it makes. So this is when I started probably four months ago. Had it in water for a really long time, but look at the roots. They are pretty good. And you can see, let me try and show you the stem. The stem is there, but the roots formed out of that bump I told you about earlier. I'm just gonna take my scissors, find like a bare spot in the soil, kind of dig around in there a little bit to make a hole. Ooh, I'm so out of breath. And I do recommend watering your Maranta plants before propagating them. I have found that this leads to higher success rate. And then also before planting them back into the soil, I recommend watering your main Maranta plant, just so it's not as much of a shock from the plant that's been in water for months to the soil. If the soil was dry, it may like burn it, but we're just gonna plop her in there, compact the soil a little bit. See, make sure I like the way it lays. There we go. Beautiful. See, and it just looks so much more full. I do actually have another one that's kind of more fresh. So I don't think I'm going to pot it up yet. I've only had this one propagating for I think maybe a month. Hope you can see those roots. I do use filtered water or rainwater for my Marantas. They do not like chemicals whatsoever. So I highly recommend using filtered water if possible. You can always, of course, try tap water and see how it works for you and where you live. Tap water is different place by place, but where I live, tap water just does not work for my Marantas. So I'm going to be honest with you and say that I actually don't change the water on my water propagations. I know that's so bad and such bad practice, but it has worked for me. All I do is once the water starts going down, then I just fill it up with some fresh water. And I haven't had any problems with root rot or mold or bacteria forming or anything like that. So, I mean, that's just what I do. It's not necessarily the best practice, but I don't know why it works for me. So I would also like to note that while I'm propagating plants, I like to give them one like level higher of light exposure, if that makes sense. So I do keep this plant pulled about eight feet back from a West window and then about two feet back from a Northern covered window. So it does get very low light. I do keep my Maranta propagations about eight feet pulled back from a Southern exposed window. It's pretty strong potent light, I would say. And I do definitely think that it's important to make sure that they are getting an excess of light while they're propagating. They need a whole lot more energy to form those roots. So this just poked me in the face. Just something to keep in mind. And a little thing I like to do, I don't know if it's a scientific thing, but it works for me. So I'm gonna share it with you. So I do typically let the roots, I mean, you saw that last plant. I let them grow for a few months before potting them into soil, just to ensure that they're strong enough to support the plant, if you know what I mean. So yeah, yup, this is the finished plant. I'm actually probably going to propagate this to show you a closeup as I'm talking about it. If I missed anything, or if you have any tips and tricks for propagating prayer plants, Maranta calathea, stromanth are really similar to the calathea plants. Tenanthi, or tenanth, stromanth, tenanthi, tenanth. I don't know, whatever it is. All of those kinds of plants are really similar to one another. As always, please leave any thoughts or tips and tricks in the comments down below. It is much appreciated. So that is it for this video. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in my next one. Bye.